


A Midnight Snack

by Severely_Lupine



Category: The Chronicles Of Vladimir Tod - Heather Brewer
Genre: Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severely_Lupine/pseuds/Severely_Lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way out of town, Otis gets hungry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Midnight Snack

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the first book. This is set right after it.

The growling of his stomach made Otis’s jaw clench. He’d promised Vlad he wouldn’t drink from the source while in Bathory, but it had been a long time since he’d fed last and if he didn’t get something in his stomach soon, he might not be able to focus on the road long enough to get where he was going in one piece. Just when he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to see anyone else on the road at this time of night, he spotted a stop-and-rob on the side of the road.

He eased his rusty old car off the freeway and into the parking lot, choosing a space on the farthest side. There were only two other cars parked there: one would belong to whoever was manning the counter, which would indicate there was at least one customer inside. A moment’s analysis and Otis got out and stepped into the shadows near the wall of the store. There were no security cameras on the outside, but he had little doubt there were some inside. If this other car turned out to have any passengers, he’d have to wait and hope another one showed up or that the employee inside decided to take a smoke break.

He didn’t wait long. Within minutes, a man dressed in a long coat with a scarf pulled up around his neck stepped around the corner from the front side of the building, one hand busy fishing his keys out of his pocket, the other holding a fountain drink.

Otis waited, watching. In the silence of the night, the sound of the man’s blood pumping through his veins was like a drum beat in Otis’s ears. His fangs pushed their way out of his gums with a fierce, insistent urgency, and his stomach growled again.

The man was putting the key in the lock now, and no one had followed him out. He was alone.

With the stealth of a cat and the speed of a rattlesnake, Otis moved behind the man. His fangs bared, ready to strike, he grabbed the man by the shoulders and spun him around, pausing just long enough to tear the scarf from the man’s neck.

It was too long.

The man, trapped between Otis and the car, dropped his keys and drink and looked with shock into Otis’s face.

Otis’s hungry snarl fell into an expression of dismay, and he let out a soft groan. He knew the man.

Recognition flickered in the man’s eyes, but it didn’t replace the shock or still the fear coursing through the man’s veins. “Otis?”

Otis shook his head sadly, but he didn’t move aside or release his grip on the man’s shoulders. “I’m sorry it’s you, Steven.”

Steven blinked, then made an attempt to struggle free—an attempt which Otis prevented with ease. “Otis, let me go,” he said, his voice flimsy with fear. “Why are you doing this? I thought we were friends. W-we have coffee together almost every day.”

“I can’t let you go, Steven. You know what I am now...”

Steven’s eyes darted for an instant to Otis’s mouth, then he shook his head vigorously. “That’s ridiculous, Otis! Stop playing around!”

It almost made Otis smile. Steven always did have trouble accepting new ideas, even when faced with clear evidence. But now the beating of Steven’s heart so close to him was making Otis’s hunger nearly unstoppable. Otis continued his thought in a hoarse whisper as if Steven hadn’t spoken. “... and I’m very hungry.”

Steven renewed his struggles to get free and took a deep breath to cry out, but Otis wrapped one arm around him, pinning his arm and pulling Steven’s body flush against him while he clamped his other hand over Steven’s mouth and angled his head sharply to the side. Then he slid his needle-sharp fangs gently into the soft skin of Steven’s neck, and hot, exquisite blood poured into his mouth.

He held Steven in an iron embrace as he drank greedily, thinking only of how amazing—how right—it felt to feed from a human after so long. He pushed from his mind intruding thoughts of the many conversations they’d had over coffee in the teachers’ lounge, of the way Steven laughed when Otis conceded a point in an argument, of the daughter in college that Steven had gushed over.

Steven was gushing again now, his delicious lifeblood pouring readily into Otis’s mouth, over his tongue, down into his eager stomach, and Otis felt a pang of regret. He wasn’t a monster. He didn’t kill solely for pleasure (very often), and he wouldn’t have chosen to kill someone he knew and liked—even a mere human—if he’d been able to stop himself before it was too late.

But a vampire had to eat.

When Otis’s thirst was sated and Steven’s body was limp in his arms, Otis opened the door of Steven’s car and set the body in the driver’s seat. Then he took one of the cigarettes from Steven’s front pocket and lit it, setting it in Steven’s lifeless hand, just close enough to catch on some papers in the passenger seat.

As the first flames flickered to life, Otis walked back to his car. The fire wouldn’t destroy the body, but it should erase any evidence of Otis’s involvement in this death.

After snapping on his seat belt, Otis sighed. Bathory would now be faced with the loss of its second junior high teacher in one year. He hoped Vlad wouldn’t take it too hard.

But then, he thought as he pulled back onto the road, Vlad was going to high school next year. And Vlad hadn’t even been in any of Steven’s classes. With any luck, Vlad wouldn’t even care.

Who was he kidding? Vlad would care. Despite Otis’s explanations, Vlad persisted in the notion that humans were their equals somehow. Otis shook his head to himself, a small, indulgent smile on his blood-stained lips. His nephew had such strange ideas.


End file.
